Microsoft Outlook

Hello xxxxxxxx,

Hope you enjoyed your Microsoft Excel course with Best STL.

Thank you for your question regarding working with Outlook offline.

When you work offline, there is no connection to your e-mail server. Changes made while you are working offline are synchronized with your Exchange server mailbox when you switch back to online state. There are several ways you can switch to offline state:

You can specify that Outlook prompt you at startup whether you want to work offline.

You can specify that Outlook check at startup for a connection to the Exchange server and, if a connection is not available, automatically switch to offline state.

In Cached Exchange Mode, you can manually switch to and from working offline by clicking Work Offline on the File menu. You do not have to restart Outlook to switch between online and offline states.

If you have set up Outlook to work offline or are using Cached Exchange Mode, if a connection is lost, Outlook will allow you to continue to work with your items — in the folders selected for synchronization in Send/Receive groups(Send Receive group: E-mail accounts and folders that you can group and set common options for, such as download headers or messages, size limits on downloaded messages, behavior online vs. offline, and time interval for connecting to server.) or all folders if using Cached Exchange Mode.

Cached Exchange Mode and working offline
If you use an Exchange server e-mail account, it is recommended that you use Cached Exchange Mode. Most of the reasons to work offline are eliminated when you use Cached Exchange Mode. The lack of a network connection is virtually transparent to you because you can continue to work with your items.

By default, Cached Exchange Mode creates and uses an Offline Folder file (.ost)(Offline Folder file: The file on your hard disk that contains offline folders. The offline folder file has an .ost extension. You can create it automatically when you set up Outlook or when you first make a folder available offline.) and then downloads and maintains a synchronized copy of the items in all folders in your mailbox. which is set up by your administrator. If you designate a personal folder file as your e-mail delivery location, messages are routed to it from your mailbox. You work with your information on your computer and Outlook synchronizes it with the server.

Whether you are at the office, at home, or on an airplane, network changes or availability are transparent to you. When your connection to the Exchange server is interrupted, you can continue to work with your data. When a connection is restored, Outlook automatically synchronizes changes and the folders and items on the server and on your computer are once again identical. Managing your connection to the server and keeping your data up-to-date is handled by Outlook. There is no need to switch to working offline and no need to keep trying to reconnect to the server — it is all automatic.

Cached Exchange Mode also frees you from having to set up Send/Receive groups, picking folders you want available offline, and keeping those folders synchronized. That’s all handled by Outlook.

I suggest you discuss this issue with your IT department who will advise you how to go about this.

I hope this resolves your question. If it has, please mark this question as resolved.

If you require further assistance, please reply to this post. Or perhaps you have another Microsoft Office question?

Have a great day.
Regards,

Rodney
Microsoft Office Specialist Trainer